Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia

210MUSIC OF THE IMPERIAL CHAPEL.

of this exquisite music, mingled with the thunder of the cannon, the ringing of the bells, and the distant acclamations of the people, was inexpressibly grand. All musical instruments are banished from the Greek church, and the voices of human beings only there celebrate the praises of God. This rigour of the oriental ritual is favourable to the art of singing, preserving to it all its simplicity, and producing an effect in the chants which is absolutely celestial. I could fancy I heard the heart-beating of sixty millions of subjects—a living orchestre, following, without drowning, the triumphal hymn of the priests. I was deeply moved: music can make us forget for one moment even despotism itself.

I can only compare these choruses without accompaniment, to the Miserere as sung during the Passion Week in the Sixtine chapel at Rome; but the chapel of the Pope is but the shadow of what it formerly was. It is one ruin more amid the ruins of Pome. About the middle of the last century, when the Italian school shone in its brightest lustre, the old Greek chants were re-arranged, without being spoilt, by composers who were brought to Petersburg from Rome. The works of .these strangers arc chefs-d`œuvre, which is mainly owing to all their talent and science having been applied in subservience to the works of antiquity. Their classic compositions are executed with a power worthy of the conception. The soprano, or children's parts — for no woman sings in the imperial chapel— are perfectly correct: the basses have a strength, depth, and purity, that exceed any thing I recollect having heard elsewhere.